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Science 28 July 1995:
Vol. 269. no. 5223, pp. 513 - 515
DOI: 10.1126/science.269.5223.513
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Articles

Force Fluctuations in Bead Packs

C. -h. Liu 1, S. R. Nagel 2, D. A. Schecter 2, S. N. Coppersmith 3, S. Majumdar 4, O. Narayan 5, and T. A. Witten 2

1 Exxon Research and Engineering Company, Route 22 East, Annandale, NJ 08801, USA.
2 James Franck Institute, University of Chicago, 5640 Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
3 AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 07974, USA.
4 Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA.
5 Department of Physics, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.

Experimental observations and numerical simulations of the large force inhomogeneities present in stationary bead packs are presented. Forces much larger than the mean occurred but were exponentially rare. An exactly soluble model reproduced many aspects of the experiments and simulations. In this model, the fluctuations in the force distribution arise because of variations in the contact angles and the constraints imposed by the force balance on each bead in the pile.

Submitted on January 17, 1995
Accepted on May 31, 1995


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